\n
Lacey Chabert is harboring a Christmastime secret\u2014and this time, it\u2019s not<\/em> that the actress is dating a snowman-turned-hot-man, a l\u00e1 her role in the holiday rom-com Hot Frosty<\/em>. But if your interest is piqued, you\u2019ll need to watch five short, dramatic episodes to find out what it is.<\/p>\nFor Maybelline\u2019s holiday campaign, Chabert reunited with her Hot Frosty<\/em> costar Dustin Milligan for a story of romance and intrigue told in the microdrama format first made popular in China. The ad, part of a campaign called \u201cMaybe This Christmas,\u201d spotlights Maybelline\u2019s Instant Eraser Concealer as the couple navigates a mystery and deception plot over the course of five episodes, each one clocking in at one minute long.<\/p>\nAlongside a social campaign and placements across premium holiday programming like the Macy\u2019s Thanksgiving Day Parade stream on Peacock and Chabert\u2019s slate of holiday films on Hallmark, the microdrama also debuted on ReelShort, a platform dedicated to bite-sized content.<\/p>\n
Microdramas are growing in popularity in the US, and parts of Hollywood are betting that the format will be more than a fad, but advertisers haven\u2019t yet widely adopted the genre for their campaigns. According to Yasmin Dastmalchi, president of Maybelline New York, Maybelline is one of the first brands to lean in.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s always about showing up where our consumers are and giving them content in formats that they want to consume,\u201d Dastmalchi told Marketing Brew. \u201cWe wanted to give them something super bingeable during this holiday season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selling the (micro) drama<\/h2>\n
Maybelline worked with agency Maximum Effort to ideate and create the five-episode campaign, and Dastmalchi estimated that the entire process\u2014from initial idea to finished product\u2014took less than six weeks. Speed, she emphasized, was a big advantage of both the microdrama format and working with the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Maximum Effort is] a partner that really helps shape cultural awareness for the brand, and they execute extremely fast,\u201d Dastmalchi said. \u201cThey really understood that we didn\u2019t want to create a traditional ad.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the microdrama ad format may be nontraditional, it\u2019s not completely unprecedented. When Maybelline came to Maximum Effort looking to \u201ccrack the holiday season,\u201d as Dastmaltchi put it, Maximum Effort\u2019s Kathleen Swanson and Pierce Thiot, the agency\u2019s heads of brand and creative, were reminded of a Taster\u2019s Choice campaign from the \u201980s and \u201990s, in which Anthony Head (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em> fame) flirts with actor Sharon Maughan over borrowed coffee in an episodic series of commercials.<\/p>\nThat soap-opera-like advertisement became the inspiration for \u201cMaybe This Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything old is new again,\u201d Swanson told Marketing Brew. \u201cWhen microdramas started becoming big again\u2026it reminded us of that [campaign] and how great it was to put the microdrama lens onto commercials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swanson and Thiot said that having two elements\u2014the right stars and the right product\u2014allowed for the over-the-top nature of the genre to shine. Chabert and Milligan, being known for their previous cheesy holiday film together, checked the first box, while Maybelline\u2019s Instant Eraser Concealer, an accessible and easy-to-understand product, checked the second.<\/p>\n
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Get marketing news you’ll actually want to read<\/h5>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t be able to do this with something that was really exclusive or expensive,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cIt just wouldn\u2019t feel right with this kind of a genre and having fun. And I think that the brand itself is allowed to have fun in that kind of way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keep \u2018em hooked<\/h2>\n
Going the fun route isn\u2019t always easy. A primary challenge of the format is making sure the brand message is loud and clear in each individual episode while still driving viewers to the next one with cliffhangers expected of the genre. It was a task Swanson said her boss calls \u201ca Triple Lindy of difficulty level.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while the goal was to hook consumers\u2019 interest deep enough that they would watch all five episodes, the team recognized that it was always possible an algorithm might only surface one episode to a viewer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very well aware of the trend of people watching some of these microdramas on TikTok, where it starts on, like, Episode 3,\u201d Thiot told Marketing Brew. \u201cSo we were also very intentional in our different placements on TikTok. We put Part 1 at the top, like you would see normally on one of these dramas, to make sure people know that if you come in on Part 3, there is more that you can go see if you like it. But then if you only have time to watch one, you\u2019re still getting that product takeaway.\u201d<\/p>\n
While advertisers might be slower to adopt the microdrama format for their campaigns themselves, some brands are increasingly interested in showing up where these dramas are watched. According to data from app marketing measurement platform Adjust, one-third of marketers surveyed for its Chinese Export App Report are now actively advertising on short drama apps like ReelShort and DramaBox.<\/p>\n
With Maybelline leaning into the microdrama format on and off ReelShort, will other brands catch on\u2014and will audiences welcome it?<\/p>\n
Thiot, for one, thinks the format has plenty of room to grow\u2014as long as brands put audience satisfaction first.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe line between content and ads continues to get blurred, and I think people are constantly looking to be entertained,\u201d Thiot said. \u201cSo as long as it\u2019s a format where people can be entertained, I think it\u2019ll continue to go on. And I think as long as people can do it smart as well, integrating a brand or an ad, if people are laughing, they\u2019re not gonna mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lacey Chabert is harboring a Christmastime secret\u2014and this time, it\u2019s not that the actress is dating a snowman-turned-hot-man, a l\u00e1 her role in the holiday rom-com Hot Frosty. But if your interest is piqued, you\u2019ll need to watch five short, dramatic episodes to find out what it is. For Maybelline\u2019s holiday campaign, Chabert reunited with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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